TWU Local 514 Blasts American for Outsourcing Seat Work

October 2, 2012

(TULSA, Okla.) – Transport Workers Union Local 514 leadership in Tulsa on Tuesday blasted American Airlines for outsourcing work on B757s aircraft that have recently had passenger seats come loose during flight, a problem that TWU Aircraft Maintenance Technicians have never allowed to happen. TIMCO Aviation Services most recently installed the aircraft’s seats that have experienced problems.

“It’s disappointing that the company chooses to point fingers instead of addressing the real issue: is this an outsourced maintenance problem? Our only relief is that nobody was hurt as a result of this,” said John Hewitt, chairman of maintenance for Transport Workers Union Local 514. “This is exactly why we fight so fiercely to keep work in-house here in Tulsa so that it can be performed by highly-trained individuals.”
In news reports, American Airlines officials said that American Airlines employees were the last to touch the seats, which is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

“Our workers were the last to touch the seats only in the sense that after the seats came loose we were dispatched to inspect the problem when the planes were grounded,” said Hewitt. “For the company to infer that TWU maintenance workers had a hand in sloppy workmanship is simply wrong. Now our members here in Tulsa will be correcting this problem as we have on numerous other occasions when outsourced work was not completed properly.”

TWU Local 514 protested the outsourcing of work to TIMCO, which came about in the run up to bankruptcy. TWU firmly believes that it is poor business practice to outsource aircraft maintenance because it often leads to additional problems. The Transport Workers Union position has always been that while there may be a cost associated with maintaining American Airlines aircraft in-house, TWU workers are focused on the quality of the work they performed. The Transport Workers Union is on record with the DOT and the FAA with concerns about the oversight and qualification standards at contract maintenance facilities around the world.